Tim: Hi Tom! You know how you LOVE children in songs? Well, have I got a treat for you!
https://soundcloud.com/thedeluxe/09-almost-christmas-day
Tim: Armand Deluxe puts out a load of Christmas track each year, and this years he’s gathered them all into one finely packaged and delightfully titled album, MISTLETOE&VODKA.
Tom: Ha. Okay, despite your introduction not selling me on this, that’s a bloody fantastic name for an album.
Tim: This one’s from 2011, and just WOW. The idea seems to be basically: put Christmas in a blender and pour it into your speakers, and oh how joyous it is. The lyrics are pretty good, if not entirely intelligible: I think one of my favourite parts is the slight intimation that Santa is actually God, though, which is a lesson we could definitely teach that stinkypoo of a vicar who told kids that Santa’s fictional.
Tom: “They would not barge into one of his services and announce that the story of Jesus was a fiction.” Awkward.
Tim: And yet valid. But anyway, before we get into a needlessly controversial discussion of the nature of existence, the song’s not about the lyrics, and it’s not really even about the frankly wonderful jingly backing and other melody bits. It’s that chorus. That infectious, repetitive chant that right from the start you just know will be there throughout, and to repeat one line a full fifteen times is quite impressive.
Tom: My problem with kids’ choirs in songs like this is that, basically, it’s like using a kazoo when you could have an entire string section. It might start out endearing, but by the end it’s just annoying and not nearly as good as the alternative.
Tim: Do you know, I’d not thought of it that way. Replace these children with, say, a full gospel choir, and it might be even better. But without that, does it need to be four minutes? Could we possibly lose one or two of those final chorus repeats? Maybe, but a line like “Forget what’s been and done when the good times roll, in the morning let Christmas roll” is one worth repeating, even if the rhyming could be a little more imaginative. IT’S GREAT.
Tom: And you know what? I agree with you. And I agree with you for one reason: it ends on a DAH-DAH-DAH-DUM. That’s just joyous. Not enough songs do that.